


les aubes sont navrantes

by obstinate_as_an_allegory



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinate_as_an_allegory/pseuds/obstinate_as_an_allegory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an unspecified modern AU, Milady gets out of jail and wants revenge on Athos. Aramis gets caught in the crossfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	les aubes sont navrantes

The footsteps behind him were almost noiseless, but Athos was on edge and he spun with practised ease. In seconds, he had his hand at a man’s throat, pushed up against the wall of a warehouse. A second later, he recognised his attacker and released him with a curse.

They glared at one another in the cold light. ‘I seem to remember telling you not to follow me.’

‘If you think you have to deal with this on your own, you’re more of a fool than I took you for,’ Aramis replied mildly.

‘And the others?’ Athos asked, sighing.

‘At the garrison, trying to get a better lead. You know, doing the damn job properly.’ Aramis’ sarcasm was laced with concern, and he eyed the shadows between two warehouses cautiously as he spoke.

‘I’m not going to explain myself to you,’ Athos growled.

‘Fine. But I’m staying.’

Athos’ self-control frayed further. ‘This is my business.’

‘Actually, it’s musketeer business. The fact that it’s personal doesn’t make your wife any less of a criminal. But that’s not why I followed you, and you know it.’

Athos was touched by Aramis’ loyalty, but tried not to let it dilute his glare. ‘Look-‘

A movement cast a shadow on the concrete across the yard and they both darted into the shadows. Pressed side by side against the metal wall, they watched as four heavily armed men in combat gear slipped into the abandoned warehouse. Athos held his breath and counted seconds in his head. At nearly two hundred, a fifth figure – similarly armed, but female – followed the others. Even at that distance and in poor light, her figure sent a shiver of recognition down his body.

Aramis noticed. ‘That’s her?’ he breathed in Athos’ ear.

Athos nodded distractedly. His ears were filling with a hollow roar which threatened to swallow up all his presence of mind. He was vaguely aware of Aramis’ hand on his arm, but couldn’t find it comforting, because this was _wrong_ – the life he had clawed out of the devastation Anne had left behind was supposed to be separate; his chosen brothers and the family they had found together should have been safe from her. And yet here she unmistakeably was, no longer behind bars.

‘ _Athos_ ,’ Aramis’ icy fingers were pressed against his cheek. Their faces were inches apart. ‘This is exactly why we told you not to go after her on your own.’

 _This is exactly why I needed to_ , Athos thought. ‘I’m moving closer,’ he muttered.

Aramis swore under his breath. ‘I’m calling in the others,’ he said. Athos narrowed his eyes at him. It was an empty threat, and they both knew it. Their current position was too close to the enemy to risk making the call, and Aramis would not be retreating to a secure position if there was any chance of Athos launching some suicidal solo attack.

‘There’s an access way from the roof,’ Athos added, ignoring Aramis’ eye-roll. He started to move and heard an exasperated huff of breath behind him. ‘Need I repeat that I didn’t ask you to come?’ he needled, in a whisper. Aramis kicked him in the ankle and followed, one hand on the gun strapped to his thigh.

They fell into practised movements, in tune with one another despite their difference of opinions. The concrete roof was mercifully solid enough to swallow the impact of two pairs of boots, and Aramis picked the lock on the roof access door. As they moved into the shadows in the upper reaches of the warehouse, snatches of terse conversation could be heard from below, where the woman was issuing instructions. Athos surveyed the group. More faces than just Anne’s were familiar – the ugly court hearings had dredged up others from her past as well: criminal contacts and accomplices, a list as long as his arm, a bitter reminder that he had never known anything real about the woman he had married. Now, apparently, she had made contact with some old friends.

Her conditional release had somehow failed to be reported to the garrison, so the first warning that she was free had come when her inevitable breach of her bail conditions came across Treville’s desk. He had wanted to put Athos in protective custody. Within an hour of the news, Athos had gone off the grid, until Aramis had tracked him down.

The warehouse was poorly lit by a few low-hanging fluorescent strips, making the broken industrial shapes cast threatening shadows. Under the lights, there was quite an arsenal of firearms and explosives assembled around Anne and her accomplices. Perhaps she had bigger plans than just revenge. Athos crept closer, careful of his boots’ sound on the metal catwalk. He could feel the agitation pouring off Aramis. They were outnumbered, and the route they’d come in by would be a difficult escape if they needed to move quickly. But if they left now, their chances of tracking Anne again before she acted were slim, and he could not allow her to hurt anyone else. Whatever darkness had been in her before they met, the ruthless creature she was now was at least partly a result of his actions. He couldn’t have any more deaths on his conscience. Nearly ten years had done little to heal the wound that Thomas’ murder had left him with; without the brotherhood he’d found in the musketeers, Athos was certain that wound would have destroyed him long ago.

Aramis had his phone out, squinting across the space to get the licence plate of the vehicle parked in the entryway. The figures below were in motion, moving explosives into the back of the SUV. She was speaking softly with the man who was perhaps her second in command, gesturing with a pistol held loosely in her hand. The sight of her dark hair provoked a vitriolic reaction from him; it was limp with the fatigue of imprisonment but still thick and dark enough that he could feel how it used to slip through his fingers. The roaring in his ears was back and he stood rigidly still, not trusting himself to move quietly. He could feel Aramis watching him intently.

With Athos’ eyes turned inward to his own memories, and Aramis’ fixed anxiously to the back of his friend’s head, neither of them saw the man who climbed into the SUV and switched on its headlights. The effect was dramatic – the catwalk was illuminated, and their shadows were thrown against the far wall. Even so, it took the man several seconds to recognise their presence. He let out a sharp yell, tumbling back out of the truck and pointing. Another man screamed ‘Cops!’ and the scene below erupted into chaos.

A barrage of bullets peppered the catwalk, striking sparks off the metal frame. Aramis swore aloud and shoved Athos flat, discarding his phone and crawling forward on his belly to shoot back, taking out the man who’d noticed them and one other before another burst of gunfire forced him to wriggle back.

‘Fuck... can we get back to the roof?’ Athos hissed, rolling to squint back the way they’d come. Aramis put a hand on the crown of his head and flattened him against the floor.

There was a brief respite when the enemy’s guns came up empty. Aramis risked another answering shot and hauled himself into a crouch, shoving Athos ahead of him towards the roof access. Hunched over, they ran for the exit, to find their way blocked by a man bigger than Porthos. Athos aimed his pistol at the obstacle, only to see another armed man behind him. He couldn’t take them both out before one of them got a shot in, and it was unlikely they’d miss from that distance. He spun, racing through other exit options in his mind. Aramis skidded to a halt beside him, gun trained on the giant but hesitating to shoot. Athos looked past him and found that Anne herself had made it up to the catwalk. They were surrounded. Athos’ eyes met those of his sometime wife, and her lips curved in a catlike smile.

They were disarmed in short order and manhandled down to the main floor. Aramis gave up his pistol with supreme reluctance, his shoulders twitching in agitation. Athos tore his eyes away from Anne to catch his eye, trying to put all his guilt and panic into a glance. Aramis shook his head sharply, dismissing Athos’ self-recrimination, and spun to hiss a protest as he was jostled.

Anne’s henchmen hustled them into a smaller side room – what may once have been the foreman’s office, though it was now unfurnished except for the pipework lacing one concrete wall. Anne had said nothing, but her smile had followed Athos’ every movement. He saw her shoot a thoughtful glance at Aramis as well, and his blood ran cold.

The two of them were shoved into the room and released; they stood together near the wall with several guns trained on them. Anne stepped into the room and with a gesture banished all but one of her men.

‘Well, Athos,’ she said at last. ‘This is a surprise.’

He said nothing. He was trembling, and he could feel Aramis’ tension as he watched him.

‘I’ve thought of you often,’ she continued, still smiling. ‘I would have come to pay you a visit eventually. But I’m glad it turned out like this.’

She walked slowly towards him. Athos shuddered violently and jolted forwards, and Aramis put a restraining hand on his sternum.

‘I followed your career with interest,’ Anne was saying. The roaring in Athos’ ears almost drowned her out. ‘It might not be the life you would have imagined for yourself, but it suits you, Athos.’

Their eyes were fixed on one another with such intensity that Aramis and the other man seemed to fade out of the room. Were it not for his comrade’s hand still on his chest, Athos might have forgotten he was there.

Anne’s smile widened. ‘You were always a big brother by nature, Athos.’ He hissed in shock. Flashes of Thomas’ body in the morgue, of her face streaked with tears and her hands glinting with blood, screams echoing off the oak-panelled walls of his family’s home. His knees unlocked and almost buckled; Aramis’ other hand gripped him by the shoulder. ‘I should have known you’d find a way to replace him,’ Anne whispered.

He took a long breath and forced himself to focus on the present – the concrete room, the cold, the muzzles of two guns still pointed at him, Aramis too close at his side. Without breaking eye contact, he schooled his face into a mask of calm. ‘You’re going back to prison, Anne,’ he said at last, his voice as cold and dispassionate as he could make it. ‘For good, this time.’

Her smile flickered for the first time, and she stepped back a few paces. ‘Not before I’ve had revenge on you, though. You’ve given me a perfect opportunity. It would be a shame to waste it.’ Athos tensed. If she wanted to kill him, she would: it was, in some ways, her right. He’d known this was a possibility when he’d come after her – on some level, it might even have been what he was looking for.

She retrieved her gun from the giant at her side and pointed it at Athos’ belly. ‘We’re moving out, now. Places to be. I think we’ll let you stay here.’

Her aim shifted slightly to the side, and Athos realised with a swoop of horror what she was doing. Aramis moved sharply, shoving him hard in a last-ditch effort to push him out of the line of fire, but she wasn’t aiming at Athos any more. The shot was deafening in the empty concrete room. Athos stumbled; Aramis’ hands on his shoulder and chest didn’t move, but their grip tightened and changed. Someone cried out and he wasn’t sure which of them it was; someone else laughed. The room was spinning.

The giant approached them brandishing a set of handcuffs: elbowing them apart, he locked Athos’ left wrist into one side, wrapped it behind the heavy water pipe and locked Aramis’ right into the other.

Aramis had slumped to the floor, his back against the chilled concrete. Tugged downwards by the wrist, Athos went to his knees. There was blood on the floor and he wasn’t sure whose it was. Someone was screaming obscenities and he thought it might have been him. Then someone kicked him in the head and he went down, Anne’s laughing face as she slammed the door behind her following him into oblivion.

-/-

‘Athos? _Athos_.’

His head throbbed, and the fluorescent light stung his eyes. He tried again to open them, and groaned. The night’s events came back to him in a cascade and his eyes flew fully open in alarm. He jolted upright and rattled his arm where it hung from the cuff, watching Aramis’ hand move in response.

‘How’s your head?’ asked a hoarse voice next to him.

He turned. ‘Oh, god...’ he mumbled.

Aramis was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, his head resting against the wall and tilted towards Athos. His free arm was clamped tightly across his middle.

‘She shot you,’ said Athos blankly.

Aramis blinked at him. ‘The big brute kicked you in the head. You’re bleeding.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Athos said automatically, but when he moved his head throbbed painfully in protest and he had to press his free hand to his temple and close his eyes to clamp down a swoop of nausea.

Aramis’ eyes widened in alarm. He braced his free arm against the floor and started to shift towards Athos, but he had barely started moving when his face drained of all colour and he slumped back, making a startled noise in his throat.

‘For God’s sake, Aramis, keep still,’ Athos hissed. He rolled onto his knees and shuffled closer. ‘How long was I out?’ he asked, moving Aramis’ arm away from the wound.

Aramis closed his eyes and pressed the back of his head hard against the wall. ‘Less than an hour. I heard the truck pull out maybe thirty minutes ago.’

The shirt was stuck to the wound with tacky blood, and his jeans were wet. Athos peeled it back, apologising under his breath when Aramis shivered.

‘It’s just a graze,’ said Aramis.

It was more or less true. Athos remembered the confused moment – Aramis had surged forwards as Anne pulled the trigger, and what would have been a fatal gut shot had instead left a bloody trench across one side of his stomach. Still, there was enough blood soaking the front of Aramis’ shirt and the floor under him to be a serious concern. ‘It’s bleeding like a motherfucker,’ Athos said tightly. This was bad. They were trapped, handcuffed to a wall in a deserted warehouse and nobody knew where they were. Not to mention Anne and her truckload of explosives off to God knew where. Though the wound was not so serious as it might have been, they would be in a lot of trouble soon enough if help did not arrive. Athos tensed, tugging on the cuff again. Aramis hissed, opening his eyes a crack.

‘Athos, it’s alright,’ he insisted. ‘The wound’s not serious.’

‘If they don’t find us...’ he started.

‘They will.’ Aramis flailed clumsily with his cuffed hand and managed to seize Athos’. His fingers were chilled.

Athos bit his lip. He bent his head to the wound again. He glanced a quick apology at Aramis before clamping his hand over the worst of it and bearing down with as much pressure as he could. The other man gasped. His grip tightened to a bruising pressure on Athos’ fingers.

‘Fuck,’ Aramis hissed. Athos kept up the pressure as best he could. There was nothing to bind the wound with. Both of them were shaking as the cold from the concrete floor leached up through their jeans. He shuffled closer, trying to share body heat. Aramis’ head was bent forward and he was biting hard on his lower lip. Athos knew him well enough to see through the certainty and calm he’d been trying to exude. Cold and in pain, Aramis was inches from panic and trying to hide it to spare him the guilt Athos knew he deserved.

‘I’m here,’ he said softly, lips close to Aramis’s ear. Aramis’ fingers tightened briefly on his. Anne had been right. Athos was a big brother by nature, and forcing him to watch another brother suffering was the worst punishment she could have devised for him.

‘That was her, then,’ said Aramis quietly.

Athos nodded. ‘That was her.’ He cleared his throat, avoiding Aramis’ eye. ‘I’m sorry you got caught up in this.’

‘Don’t be stupid. Like you said, you didn’t ask me to follow you.’

‘This is the last thing I wanted... I...’ he faltered into silence, biting his lips.

‘She knows how to get to you. You’ve said so yourself.’

Athos looked at him then. Aramis could be annoyingly perceptive. ‘Yes. And she knows that I will never forgive myself, if –‘

‘Don’t – don’t go there,’ Aramis tried to shift against the wall and huffed in pain and frustration. ‘I will not allow her to hurt you like that again.’

Athos’ brow creased. ‘You’re going to be alright, then, are you?’ he said wryly.

Aramis attempted to flash a grin at him. The effect was dampened by the dark circles under his eyes, but Athos appreciated the effort.

-/-

It had been a long twelve hours. Athos’ disappearance, while not entirely unexpected, had thrown an already fraught situation into chaos. Aramis had at least called in briefly before following suit, but there had been no dissuading him. A text had come through shortly before midnight, with a license plate number and the word ‘explosives’ and no further explanation. Now Aramis, too, had been off the grid for hours.

D’Artagnan and Porthos had pulled up file after file of records from the previous case. Poring through them felt uncomfortably like an invasion of Athos’ privacy, but, as Porthos growled when d’Artagnan raised the concern, if he’d been there to help they might not have needed to go through _everything_. Anne de la Fère had been known to use a number of aliases – de Winter, de Breuil, de la Chapelle, sometimes using the first name Melody instead of Anne – but all her recent activities seemed to have been conducted under her married name, perhaps as a taunt at her estranged husband.

Aramis’ text message was the first real lead they’d had all day. D’Artagnan ran the plates on the vehicle while Porthos and Constance tried without success to trace the signal on his phone. It was dead. ‘Battery?’ suggested Constance. Porthos hummed doubtfully.

The SUV was traced to a position startlingly close to the Garrison, and the two of them joined the musketeers sent after it. The fight was short and brutal, leaving three musketeers in the ER and several more of de la Fère’s henchmen dead. She herself was apprehended more easily than expected, wearing an expression of satisfaction which chilled Porthos to his core.

-/-

The cold and the quiet were getting to them both. Athos longed to get up and pace, but the handcuff kept him tethered to the wall. He’d wrestled with it for a while, but only succeeded in scraping the skin off his wrist, and every time he pulled too sharply on the cuff he jostled Aramis’ arm.

Aramis hated the silence; even with Athos’ hand clasped in his own he needed continuous reassurance that he wasn’t alone. Athos told him every joke he could remember, timing them badly and misremembering the punchlines, his voice shaking a bit more every hour.

The bleeding from Aramis’ bullet wound had slowed, but blood loss combined with the cold was visibly taking its toll on him. The first few times he started to drift off, Athos was able to rouse him with a gentle nudge. Later, he had to resort to a sharp pinch on the earlobe.

Aramis hissed as he came back to himself. ‘Athos? Fucking – _ow_. W-what was that for?’

‘Stay awake,’ Athos told him levelly.

Aramis blinked several times; his dark irises looked childlike and confused in his pale face. ‘Mmhm. I’m awake,’ he muttered.

‘Good. That’s good, Aramis.’ Athos gripped his hand tighter, wincing at the chill on his skin. ‘The others’re going to be here soon.’

-/-

Too wired to sit in on the interrogation, Porthos waited in the office with Constance in charged silence while Treville and d’Artagnan conducted the interview. When they finally reappeared, they wore matching expressions of barely suppressed fury. Treville’s eyes swept the office, empty this early in the morning except for Porthos and Constance, who were both looking eerily grey-faced.

‘D’Artagnan, get ready to move out. I’ll brief Porthos.’

D’Artagnan took a shaky breath and sent a nervous glance between the two of them before nodding and ducking out of the room. Constance gave Treville an unreadable look and followed him.

‘Did she tell you where they are?’ Porthos demanded.

‘Yes. I’m sending you and d’Artagnan to fetch them.’ Treville’s tone was curiously flat.

‘Where are they?’ he pressed impatiently.

‘Sit down,’ Treville ordered.

He opened his mouth to protest, but the captain pressed on. ‘Look – there’s no reason to treat her information as reliable.’

‘Fuck that! We’re going.’

‘Of course. I... Porthos, she told us that she... shot Aramis. She believes that... she killed him.’

Porthos hadn’t sat down when he was ordered to, but found himself sitting now; Treville’s hand was on the back of his neck pushing his head down between his knees. _Not Aramis. No no no..._

‘She may well have been lying,’ Treville continued, the break in his voice starting to be audible. He was remembering her smile as she’d calmly met his gaze across the table in the interview room, the malicious glint in her eye.

_‘Why would you tell us where they are?’ d’Artagnan had demanded. ‘Just like that?’_

_‘I can’t promise you’ll find the Athos you know,’ she’d said sweetly._

_‘What does that mean?’_

_‘Just that I know how to bring out the worst in him. Always did.’_

_‘What did you do to him?’ d’Artagnan hissed, trembling with fury. Treville laid a hand on his arm._

_‘Left him cradling his brother’s body,’ she said, as casually as if she were discussing the weather._

_D’Artagnan’s hands curled into fists. He’d read the reports from nine years ago; they had made his stomach turn. ‘I mean,’ he said, his voice deceptively level, ‘what did you do to him_ this time _?’_

_There was suppressed fury underneath her smile. Treville would be haunted for life by the look on her face as she said softly ‘Oh, same again.’_

_D’Artagnan jolted back as if stung. He seemed temporarily struck dumb. ‘Aramis,’ he whispered. She was watching him intently; the satisfied smile was back._

_‘You killed him?’ Treville asked bluntly, feeling d’Artagnan recoil beside him._

_‘I shot him in the belly. He’ll have had time to bleed out by now. You’ll find Athos handcuffed to the body.’_

_The gloating was more than he could bear. He took d’Artagnan roughly by the shoulder and steered him out of the room._

The silence in the office thickened. After a moment, a shiver went through Porthos’ shoulders, and he levered himself upright with a great effort.

‘She’s a lying bitch,’ said Porthos. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

Treville nodded and clapped him on the shoulder.

-/-

D’Artagnan slammed the door hard and didn’t hear Constance quietly open it again. He went through the familiar movements in jerky, violent motions, pulling on his Kevlar vest and loading his preferred pistol.

‘D’Artagnan,’ she said softly. ‘What is it?’

He turned in surprise, and at the sight of her he stilled. He chewed his lip and pressed his eyes closed. He didn’t hear her approach, but felt her arms slowly wrap around him and bent his head into her tangled hair.

‘Is Athos...’

‘No,’ he choked out. ‘Aramis.’

Constance’s eyes fell shut in horror.

After Porthos and d’Artagnan left, she slipped into Treville’s office and found him bent over his desk in the dark with his face in his hands. She closed the door and leaned against it. Only the two of them had known Athos when he had first joined the musketeers, before Porthos, then Aramis, then d’Artagnan had slowly formed a new family around him. She remembered that man – the drinking, the despair, the air of violence hovering around him that never quite dispelled. The self-destructive tendencies.

Treville didn’t move.

‘If it’s true,’ Constance began, and faltered into silence.

He looked up slowly. ‘If Aramis is dead...’ he trailed off to glance listlessly around the room and then back to Constance. ‘We may yet lose them all.’

-/-

Hours had passed. Athos had stopped trembling and was distantly aware that this should be cause for concern, but there was little room for that concern in the vast echo-chamber of guilt that was currently the landscape of his thoughts. Aramis’ head was propped on his thigh, his face starkly white against his dark hair. Athos smoothed the hair back from his forehead, still gripping the fingers of his other hand where it dangled from their shared handcuffs. Aramis’ right arm was stretched awkwardly across his body, his left clamped as tightly as he could manage around the wound in his stomach.

Athos had needled him to stay awake for hours, watching as it became more and more of a struggle. His eyes had fallen closed a little while ago, and he didn’t have the heart to ask again if he was awake, for fear of not receiving an answer.

He hadn’t asked Aramis to follow him here. He’d come here to settle an old score, lay old demons to rest. It was a private mission. But Aramis had followed anyway, never one to let a friend charge into danger alone (and the irony of that was something, given the tendency towards recklessness and impulsiveness which he had shown on occasion). Athos had come here to banish the image that haunted him: a little brother bleeding to death in his arms. And somehow, he’d found himself achieving the exact opposite.

Aramis’ forehead wrinkled under his hand and his apparently limp fingers twitched. Athos stared at him, and he was still again for long enough that Athos thought he might have imagined the movement.

‘It’s cold,’ Aramis muttered.

Athos tensed, his fingers tightening in Aramis’ hair. ‘I know,’ he croaked in response.

Aramis’ startlingly black eyes blinked up at him. ‘This... isn’ your fault, ‘Thos.’

Trust Aramis to pick a time like this to start reading minds. ‘How’re you feeling?’ he asked, stubbornly ignoring the statement. Aramis smiled wanly but said nothing.

The noise of the outer door opening was startlingly loud, and they both flinched. Athos’ first thought was that Anne had returned to finish what she started. To judge by the way Aramis’ eyes lit up, his interpretation was considerably more optimistic.

‘Here – ‘ Aramis rolled towards him, apparently trying to sit up, but flopped back down with a muffled cry. Athos resumed stroking his hair, watching the door intently.

-/-

Porthos had barely spoken on the drive over. D’Artagnan was struggling to keep his cool. Though he felt closer to his three teammates than to anyone else in the world, save Constance, he was painfully aware at times like this of their longer shared history. Losing Aramis would be bitter and devastating for d’Artagnan, but he suspected it would be something more than that for Porthos. And for Athos, whose horrible past had been laid open so brutally, and who had, if what that woman had said was true, spent the last nine hours handcuffed to one of his best friends and watching him bleed out from the gut – for Athos, this might be the end of the sanity he had slowly managed to regain.D’Artagnan could almost feel their partnership fraying.

The industrial estate was deserted, and the warehouse was vast and hollow. They split up, holding guns in line with their flashlights in case any of de la Fère’s men were still lingering. There was nobody in the warehouse. Porthos rejoined him by the door, shaking his head, his lips pressed tightly together to suppress a moan of despair.

‘She lied,’ d’Artagnan said. ‘Lied about where they were, so she might have...’

‘Don’t,’ said Porthos tersely.

He shut his mouth abruptly, feeling even more wretched than before.

They started to turn to the exit when Porthos said ‘Wait.’ A door at one side of the warehouse had caught his attention. Someone had shoved a couple of heavy crates in front of it, partly obscuring it from view.

They sprinted for it and shoved the crates out of the way. The door was locked, and opened outwards, so it didn’t yield to even Porthos’ hardest kick. D’Artagnan crouched in front of it to pick the lock, feeling the impatience pouring off Porthos behind him. At last, the lock clicked.

Athos was slumped against the opposite wall, sickly pale with a thick streak of blood painting one side of his face. Aramis was sprawled half in his lap, facing away from the door. They were cuffed to a pipe by one hand apiece. There was a fair bit of blood on the floor, though less than d’Artagnan had feared when the de la Fère woman had spitefully described the scene.

‘Athos,’ said d’Artagnan, bolting forwards. To his relief, Athos’ eyes were open; he was staring at Porthos in wild desperation.

‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped out.

‘Is he -?’ The question was almost inaudible. Porthos was hanging back, drinking in the spectacle, his expression hollowed-out and drained.

‘He’s – she shot him, Porthos, I’m so – so sorry.’

‘Shut up,’ Porthos told him brusquely, and Athos crumbled visibly.

D’Artagnan ignored this exchange with some effort and crouched to put his fingers to Aramis’ throat. ‘He’s alive!’ he interjected.

Immediately, the spell broke. Porthos was at his side before he’d realised the big man was moving, rolling Aramis onto his back. D’Artagnan pulled his lock picks out again and turned his attention to the handcuffs. Porthos took Aramis’ face in both hands and let out a sob when his eyelids twitched.

‘He needs – hospital,’ Athos choked.

Porthos turned to him. ‘So do you, idiot. God, I’m sorry. We’d – I assumed the worst.’ He lunged forwards to envelop Athos in a one-armed hug.

‘It was – she was punishing me,’ he mumbled. ‘I got him shot. Nearly got him killed.’

Porthos shook his head firmly. ‘Not your fault. She’s in custody, thanks to your recon.’ Athos looked confused at that, shaking his head.

D’Artagnan hissed in triumph as the handcuff sprang loose, and he carefully eased Athos’ bloodied wrist out of the cuff. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.

-/-

An hour later, Constance found d’Artagnan and Porthos perched on hard plastic chairs in a hospital room, playing cards very quietly in deference to Athos, asleep in the opposite bed. She slipped into the room silently, but they both looked up immediately, still wired from the tensions of the night. She pulled Porthos into a hug first, then d’Artagnan.

‘How are they?’ she whispered. ‘Concussion, mild hyperthermia. And a serious case of self-loathing,’ Porthos said, nodding to Athos’ sleeping form. ‘They’re still working on Aramis.’

‘He... was shot?’ she asked, hesitantly.

‘It was a graze. Bled a fair bit, though.’ Porthos ran a shaky hand over his close-cropped hair. Relief was warring on his face with the still-present worry. The horror of those hours he’d spent expecting to find his lover’s dead body had not quite left his system yet.

‘He’ll be alright,’ she said firmly. Porthos managed a shaky smile.

-/-

Athos woke up to unexpected warmth and low, rumbling snores. Mindful of his still-fragile head, he propped himself up and squinted across the room at the source of it, which turned out to be Porthos, sleeping with his head hanging back off his chair.

‘Don’t wake him up,’ said a soft voice next to him. Athos turned and found a second bed with matching institutional sheets, occupied by a pale but smiling Aramis. ‘He’s been worrying about us all night.’

Athos blinked at him, taking in the IV, the bandages, the slightly unfocused eyes which spoke of pain medication or exhaustion or both. ‘You’re alright?’ he croaked eventually.

Aramis nodded sleepily. ‘You?’

Athos considered. His life had been eventful and often difficult, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the night before had been one of the worst he’d ever endured. Anne’s reappearance had shaken him badly, and the threat she had posed to his friends even more so. He doubted that he’d be able to get over it any time soon. Still, he was mostly intact, stitches on his hairline notwithstanding.

The door opened, admitting Constance and d’Artagnan, juggling coffee cups and pastries. ‘You’re awake!’ said d’Artagnan happily, though Athos wasn’t sure whether he meant Aramis or himself. Constance shushed him sternly, elbowing him in the ribs. She laid down the cups she was carrying and moved between the beds, smoothing Aramis’ hair back and kissing him on the forehead, then turning to hug Athos, who was sitting mostly upright and silently petitioning d’Artagnan for a coffee cup.

Despite their efforts to be quiet, Porthos woke with a snort and blinked at them all for a moment before lurching to his feet and snatching the coffee away from Athos with a glare. ‘No caffeine for you, idiot, you’ve got a head wound.’

Athos sighed. D’Artagnan looked sheepish. Constance sat cross-legged on the end of Athos’ bed and opened a magazine, making a show of ignoring them all. Porthos tugged his plastic chair over to Aramis’ side and pressed his lips briefly to his boyfriend’s knuckles. Aramis cajoled Constance into reading out the agony aunt column. Athos groaned theatrically, pretending to be annoyed with them all. He caught Aramis’ eye across the room, one eyebrow still slightly raised in question. He nodded, and Aramis, satisfied, closed his eyes and apparently went back to sleep.


End file.
